


L'Amore

by starraya



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-18 18:17:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8171218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starraya/pseuds/starraya
Summary: It's just dinner. (Except it's not.)





	

It's just dinner.

They're huddled around a small table in a corner of the Italian restaurant Bernie suggested, and its just like any other of its type. Immediately on entry the smell of garlic, tomato and fresh dough wafts around you, irresistibly pulling you into the darkened establishment. For a Thursday night the place is fairly lively, not quite bustling, but the sound of chatter smattered with full-belly chuckles, the intermittent chink of glasses and clatter of cutlery floats forth around from every direction. The faint notes of violins stream underneath, the words to the music lost within the other sounds. The place is, in short, lovably quaint. It's the kind of building you're inclined to think the architects didn't have a clue what they were doing with, no blueprint, no plan, no intended order or structure. The ceiling dips low in odd places, before rising steeply and the floor isn't level, but instead slopes up in the direction of the hill it's built on and there's four brick pillars plonked in the very middle of the restaurant, great, thick columns the waiters have to weave in and out of, a hundred plates balanced precariously on their arms. It makes for a quite comical sight. Would do, if it didn't remind Serena of how, eyes slow to adjust to the dim lighting, she nearly strode straight into one when they arrived. Luckily, Bernie grabbed her hand just in time and pulled her to the side out of harm's way.

Bernie hasn't been back here in years, but she remembers the layout quite well and is quick to guide Serena to her favourite table, somewhere not too far away from the bar, but not right in the hubbub of the restaurant. When Bernie spots another couple appearing to head to the table, she murmurs 'quick' and tugs Serena forward, expertly steering them through the tables and pillars, waiters and diners. A couple of stairs, a swift dodge of another ill-placed pillar and a haphazard throw of Bernie's coat on the back of a chair and the table's theirs, claimed for the night. Serena can't help but smile at Bernie's triumphant 'aha!'.

"You just can't resist it, can you?" She says, looking down at their fingers, still entwined.

"Resist what?" Bernie asks, eyes following Serena's and flicking down to their hands, before softly letting go of Serena's. Hand now free, awkwardly Bernie tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"You're too competitive for your own good." Serena moves to the chair opposite Bernie's, hands reaching to pull it out, but she pauses, hands hovering mid-way when Bernie speaks next. 

"Says the woman who proposed an arm wrestle at the first chance she could get."

"Says the women who rigged the game."

"In _your_ favour." Bernie hooks her bag on the back of her chair, before sidling around to Serena's.

"Anyway," Bernie gestures to the much-coveted table in justification, "only the best for you." Serena feels her cheeks redden and pays a silent thanks to the darkness of the restaurant when Bernie courteously pulls out Serena's chair for her. "Allow me, Madam."

"I think you'll find that's French," Serena corrects her, sitting down in her chair.

"Very well, Signora. Or it is Signorina?" Bernie's replies as she returns back to her table, brow furrowing. "I'm never sure which."

"Do the Italians have a word for embittered, washed-up and slightly past it middle-aged divorcees?"

"Serena," Bernie sighs at Serena's self-deprecating humour, "you're not . . ." She looks direct at Serena and holds her gaze. "You're - "

A waiter interrupts them to ask for their order and both women realise they haven't paid one glance to the menu, haven't paid a single thought to dinner. Serena orders a bottle of Barbera. One of the few red wines, she tells Bernie as she scans the wine list after the waiter dashes away, that matches the acidity of tomato source and isn't overwhelmed by it, but soft and velvety on the tip of the tongue. It will complement pasta or pizza perfectly.

"Eaten a lot of Italian food?" Bernie asks casually, secretly more than a little impressed.

"No, but I've drank a lot of different wines in my time. Something it looks like this place isn't short on."

"As I said, only the best."

"And here was I thinking you brought me here just to get me drunk." 

"Me. _Never._ I however did have every intention of getting myself drunk tonight. You're more than welcome to join in."

Serena tuts, feigning disapproval. "It's a weeknight."

"Remind me when that's ever stopped you before."

"It's not me I'm worried about. It's you, dragging yourself into work tomorrow for an 8AM shift with the hangover from hell, pretending that you feel _perfectly_ fine, but secretly downing cups of coffee, one after the other, between a lot of grumbling and well . . . general . . .  grouchiness."

"I don't get grouchy."

"Bernice Griselda Wolfe, we both know full well that's not true."

"Okay . . . I get a little . . . tetchy. But I hide it well."

"From everyone but me, yes, but - "

"But I'm not the one who got so drunk one night, the following morning she had to dash to the loos halfway through a departmental meeting because the mere scent of hand sanitizer turned her stomach."

"That was _one_ time. So I may have mixed my drinks a little," Serena defends her past self, "let my hair down, had a little fun, but it was my _birthday_."

"And that why's I covered for you for the rest of the morning," Bernie says, remembering also driving Serena to work that morning, knowing she'd probably still be over the limit and the next day finding a cup of coffee waiting for her on her desk, exactly as she liked it, next to a completed pile of particularly _gruesome_ paperwork she'd been finding ways to put off for weeks. The ward had been so busy that she and Serena had missed each other most of the day, but when they had eventually run into each other Serena had given her a smile Bernie found impossible to put in words, a smile that had made Bernie struggle to find any herself when Serena asked if she had ten minutes for a sneaky coffee and chat. Bernie, in her dazed state, had misheard Serena and her brain had all but short circuited for a moment, before she came to her senses when Serena joked about perhaps throwing in a chocolate biscuit in the offer if she was lucky.

Bernie's feels a blush creep up her neck at the memory and tries to divert her thoughts by finally picking up the food menu ans Serena follows suit. For a few silent moments they both browse the menus in their hands, before Bernie finds that her thoughts aren't easily distracted. "I wish I'd been there at your fiftieth," Bernie chuckles, "I've heard some wonderful stories about karaoke and album worthy renditions of Abba's best hits. Is it true you managed to get half of Holby to duet with you?"

Serena glances up from her menu, eyes glinting mischievously. "Wouldn't you like to know."

-

Someone should have warned her. There should be signs in restaurants. Do not order spaghetti - particularly spaghetti _drenched_ in tomato sauce - on a date. Not that this is a date, Bernie reminds herself. It's just dinner between friends. But the same etiquette should apply. Every two seconds she finds herself dabbing the napkin at the corner of her lips, certain there is sauce there. Sauce she tries not to splatter everywhere when she digs her fork into the pasta and picks up half the plate.

Really, it should be a unspoken rule. No spaghetti.

Of course, when she cooks it at home she never gives one thought to how she eats it since she's typically very alone and very hungry after a tiring shift, like today. Only Bernie had forgotten what it's like on a date. Or at the very least to go out and share dinner with someone. She's never felt more self-conscious in her life sat this close opposite someone. It's silly, she knows. It's just dinner between friends, casual, relaxed, friendly. Easy conversation flows as smoothly as the wine, and companionable silence falls between them when there's a natural pause. And yet, as she struggles again to scrape up the spaghetti - and maintain as much dignity as possible - even as it slips and drips from her fork, she frowns deeply.

Next time she takes Serena out she won't suggest Italian.

That's if there is a next time. And she's not taking her out _out -_ they're not going out _out -_ they're just - for now -

Bernie shakes those thoughts from her head, and looks up from her plate, where her gaze has been fixed rather intently, to find Serena's watching her amusedly over her dish of lasagne - of course, Bernie thinks, the endlessly graceful Serena Campbell would _never_ make such an amateur mistake of ordering spaghetti on a date.

"Struggling?" Serena arches an eyebrow.

"A bit."

"Allow me," she offers, repeating Bernie's earlier words before rising and stepping towards Bernie. She hovers behind her and picks up the spoon Bernie had tried to use but soon tossed back on the table when their dinner had first arrived. Leaning in close, Serena places her hand over Bernie's and shows her how to twist the spaghetti neatly, fork pressed against the spoon, with expert precision. It's a lesson Bernie struggles to concentrate on as she is overwhelmed by the sweet, floral scent of Serena's perfume and the feel of Serena's fingers grazing hers.

Serena's explaining something Bernie doesn't fully hear, and when Serena's touch slips away and she returns to her own seat Bernie is still half-dazed. Her hands mechanically winding the pasta around and around her fork tightly. Thoughts still scattered, Bernie manages to mutter a small thanks, the feeling of Serena's body pressed up behind hers, however fleetingly, still burning her skin.

"You'd think I'd be better with my hands." Heat floods Bernie's cheeks. "I mean . . . as a surgeon . . . whose performed countless, complex operations and  . . ." Bernie's voice trails off and she takes a generous gulp of her wine.

-

Bernie had forgotten about the candle light. Forgotten how it could frame a person's features. It illuminates Serena's face, the line of her jaw, the slope of her nose, the curve of her lip. When she laughs the candle light ripples over her. Her wine flushed face glows. And sometimes when she tilts her head or leans back in her chair the candlelight drapes so softly over her features, so they're half bathed in light, half in shadow, but a tiny, bright spark of reflected light glints in her eye. Just for a second it flashes before Serena shifts slightly in her chair and the glint disappears, replaced by a darkness so rich and deep it shines.

Impossibly wide and black and gleaming is how Bernie will later remember Serena's pupils when she leant forward across the table, gesturing to Serena's mouth before gently dabbing away the wine at the corner of her lips with a napkin. She did it instinctively and without thinking how close their faces would hover in front of each others, how she would be able to smell the wine on Serena's lips or feel the warmth of her breath when she exhales after Bernie lowers the napkin or how Serena's eyes would entrap hers so Bernie couldn't lean back in her chair, couldn't speak, couldn't think straight, couldn't do anything but let her eyes drift down to Serena's lips, magnetised there. 

Serena's tongue darts to wipe the corner of her mouth. Even though the stain of wine is gone it feels like it's been replaced with something else. She licks her lips. They feel extremely dry. Her fingers wrap around her wine glass, but she doesn't lift it up to take a sip. Her thumb and forefinger press firmly against the stem.

She leans forward and feels her and Bernie's knees brush. She is overcome with a strange desire to reach for Bernie's hand underneath the table, to hold it tightly and for nobody in the restaurant to know. For them alone to share in that moment. But a greater part of her, the part that feels acutely her heart thudding and her blood burning within her, and wants her to incline her head and close the distance between their lips.

Bernie's taste is impeccable. The wine here is exquisite. A thesis Serena is in the process of thoroughly trying and testing. But there is a another, far more pressing, question on her mind. It's tied her in stomach knots these past weeks, and her tongue in several too. It's sent her heart fluttering and her words stammering and her cheeks burning. The answer's jolted through her system at an alarming rate and now it floods her veins as delicious and sweet and warming as wine: she's falling in love.

She's _fallen_ in love. With Bernie Wolfe.

But there's still a thousand _what ifs_. A thousand answers whirling around in her mind. A thousand questions she craves the answers to, warmer, sweeter, infinitely more delicious answers than the one she sought weeks ago after their first kiss, more longed for because of how simple they are, yet still unknown to her. Most of the time they strike Serena out of nowhere, when she's at home or work or driving.

How Bernie probably had discipline and order drilled into her in the army, but struggled to leave their office as anything but looking like a tip when Serena returned from suspension - another little, private act of rebellion of her's, a symbol of her old independence perhaps? Serena wonders more than once how Bernie looked in her uniform. How she looks when she wakes up in the morning. How her hair would feel if Serena ran her hands through it. How her arm would feel around Serena's waist, having settled their naturally, like it's a second home, to pull her closer. Serena questions if Bernie's ticklish. If she does ever actually fall ill, or if she's just amazingly good at hiding it. If she will ever tell Serena that her back's giving her jip again, and if it would be true, and if Serena would care if it wasn't. If Bernie did get a new mattress. If it's as soft and heavenly as Serena imagines it.

Some questions Serena only lets herself think of the answers to at night. Answers she hungers for. Answers, if given in the future, she knows won't just cause her tongue to tingle, or mind to buzz, or blood to thrum, now that her systems adjusted to that first dizzying rush of love, but will make her whole body ignite. 

How Bernie's skin would taste, her neck, her throat, the place just above her pulse-point if Serena put her lips to them. How her body would feel against her's if Serena pulled her close, every inch of Bernie's skin against every inch of hers. Would it ever be enough? Or would it be like all those weeks ago on the theatre floor, when their kisses grew deeper and harder, tongues slipping into each other's mouths and exploring them for the first time, and their hands clutched at each other, and all Serena wanted was _more._ Wanted Bernie's hands not just in her hair. 

_Wanted Bernie._

But their pagers beeped, and they were forced to separate, and  _more_ became a tantalising promise for future days, and then Bernie had suggested that they forget about the kiss, and _more_ had become a half-crushed hope as bitter and lingering as the wine Serena drank after Bernie had left their office - eyes on the ground, on the door, ahead of her, decidedly anywhere but Serena - the wine Serena had poured Bernie, the wine Bernie had left untouched on her desk, and then they had begun to see less and less of each other, the days simply got busier, no time for a shared break or any strength left for a drink at Albies afterwards, they were simply too tired, and _more_ became a ghost of a fantasy that flickered at the edge of Serena's mind in the day and at night consumed her, made her ache and burn, made her grind against her own hand, bite her lip, bury her head in her pillow, find her release with more of a frustrated whimper than a passionate cry out and lie there afterwards, panting in the darkness, aching still, aching _more_ than before.

There are so many memories and desires and questions spiralling around her head, fogging up her mind more than any wine could, and Serena struggles to concentrate on anywhere but Bernie's lips, how solid and warm they would feel on hers. She moves her wine glass to one side and lets go of it, letting her hand fall to the table. Her fingers cautiously uncurl and stretch out. Never once do her eyes leave Bernie's. The sounds of the restaurant, the scrape of knives on plates, the pleasantries of waiters as they serve dishes, the laughs of sated and happy diners recede like a wave on the shore.

Everything happens at once, Bernie taking Serena's hand in hers, fingers skimming over Serena's knuckles, Bernie's head just beginning to tilt towards hers, then the chirp, sharp and cheery, of a waiter, them both springing apart, and the rush back of the scrapes of knives, the pleasantries of waiters, the laughs of the diners that carries away their mumbled yeses when the waiter asks if their finished. There is the clack of their empty plates as he collects them. When the waiter asks if they would like the desert menu Bernie replies with a 'yes thanks' and Serena a 'no thank you'. After the waiter dashes off to retrieve it Serena finishes off the last of her wine and pours herself another.

"Too full for desert, but not for another glass?" Bernie quips, a smirk playing on her features.

"I'm never too full for wine. And besides, everyone knows, drink calories aren't the same as normal ones. They don't count as much."

Bernie brows quizzes. She narrows her eyes at Serena.

"I promise you," Serena takes a sip of wine, "it's a medical fact."

"I'll have to let the World Health Organisation know so they can update their files. But seriously," Bernie says as the waiter hands her the desert menu, "are you sure you don't want something? What about," Bernie reads, " _creamy_ vanilla cheesecake _drizzled_ with raspberry sauce or moist chocolate fudge cake _drenched_ in a rich dark Belgian chocolate sauce, served with fluffy whipped cream or soft dairy ice cream."

It was Serena's turn to narrow her eyes. "They sound positively _calorific_."

"Tasty though. Come on, we saved lives today. I think we deserve a _little_ indulgence. There's apple pie if you want the illusion of healthiness. It is fruit." And _loaded_ with sugar, Serena wants to say, but she can't deny that Bernie's word haven't tempted her.

"Oh, go on then," Serena relents, taking the menu from Bernie's hands with a playful sigh.

"What takes your fancy?" Bernie asks as Serena sweeps her eyes over the list of deserts.

Serena smiles, "What takes yours?


End file.
